Insulation blowing and spraying machines are well known in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 4,411,390 (1983) to Woten discloses a blower having a receiving hopper, a shedding zone, an auger, and a tearing and separating zone. A fan propels the particulate insulation material down a hose, usually for application in a building.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,508 (1989) to Lewis discloses a bag of asbestos which is opened by machine, emptied, and the bag is disposed of. Bags are fed vertically down into two rotating drums each having rigid spikes to separate two halves of the bag after a knife cuts open the bag down the middle. The spikes could injure a worker. The bag segments fall away into an undisclosed place.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,590,984 (1997) to Assarsson discloses a truck that has a ceiling mounted conveyor and a system which first cuts open insulation bags, then drops the insulation into a hopper of a blower. The system requires the set up labor of inserting a carrier rod through each bag and lifting, then hooking each bag to the ceiling conveyor.
The present invention simplifies the operation of a portable insulation bag handling, opening and blower system. Various sized bags can be handled. Standard bags are stacked in a loading bin. The one man operator can remotely feed a bag onto a horizontal conveyor which cuts open and strips off and discards the bag. The bag then drops into a conventional blower. The operator can be stationed inside a building under construction applying insulation while all these processes occur.